Hello and welcome to The Extremophiles, a video showcasing the National Science Foundation Project entitled, Learning from the PROSE: Exploring professional organizations' role in supporting Black engineering student success. In this video we share a major finding of our work in a taxonomy of counterspaces identified and informed directly by Black engineering graduate students from across the nation. Our work identifies the entities that offer support to offset the racialized and marginalizing experiences encountered in navigating engineering as informed by the students themselves. This realm considers identity-related, familial, professional and well-being counterspaces as being critical to the success of Black engineering students. Additionally, we posit that Black students are extremophiles navigating academic environments wherein most others would not survive (here, meaning able to navigate successfully). As opposed to establishing more access and resources for more counterspaces, we place a call to action that our true intentions be focused to dismantle systems of oppression that perpetuate anti-Black environments. We invite your comments, reactions, questions, and feedback regarding the video. The questions below are to stimulate engagement as we look forward to connecting with you!

1. What forms of data and/or dissemination have been most effective in stimulating policy change in the realm of STEM?
2. How might what we’ve learned about counterspaces be leveraged to promote the cultivation of inclusive and antiracist engineering environments? Who is responsible for taking these actions?
3. How would you conceptualize impact in work in the realm of this project and/or that focused on promoting equity, inclusion and the experiences of people from marginalized groups in engineering?

Thank you for the research.  Centering voices of Black people (and other marginalized groups), especially in these spaces, needs to be amplified.  This is very much in line with the work of Mia Ong, Terrell Morton, and others. The million dollar question is always how do you leverage work like this to cultivate systemic change and disrupt institutional barriers and patterns of inequity. 

One particular nuance that I think comes out of this research and others who also research marginalized experiences in higher education is that the plethora of responsibilities/and weight that students still carry having already demonstrated a level of success.  Contributing to the notion of being extremophiles, this description should be investigated for Black STEM faculty.  Black faculty must be DEAIB champions, individual and collective mentors, institutional ambassadors (often tokenized), A+ researchers, etc.  In this sense your work could create support for Black faculty, but more so encourage broader, more culturally inclusive/responsive evaluation criteria to support growth of Black faculty and others.

Further I think this work should normalize graduate programs intentionally creating, attempting to create, or empowering the creation of counterspaces by their students.  Often times, students are brought in to just do the work of research, without an understanding of the taxonomy you have laid out, or that health and multiple forms of support are critical to professional success.

Such an important topic, and a great video! I am wondering how mentorship fits into this taxonomy of counter spaces. Who is mentoring Black graduate engineering students, and who are the students, in turn, able to mentor? How do mentoring relationships influence a sense of identity, belonging, well-being, etc.?

Christina, 

This has been the situation over the decades. Hope it changes to a point where we do not need the counter spaces anymore. 

Dr. Coley, I like the taxonomy of counter spaces as a tool for understanding and crafting more equitable, inclusive and culturally responsive environments. Thank you for the meaningful work you are doing! Clearly, you are a pivotal role model for so many of your students. 

This was a very compelling video, and I'm thrilled to see the work. I wonder if you might speak to how you landed on the creation of counterspaces as the primary leverage point for making change? Can you speak in more depth about what "counts" as a counterspace, how to identify them, how to build them, etc? Thank you so much for sharing your work with us -

I would say counterspaces are the spaces of resistance where students are nourished, supported, encouraged, and develop critical thinking to fight White Supremacy. The first counter spaces are the HBCUs and then nine historically Black Greek letter organizations (BGLOs) that make up the National Pan-Hellenic Council; 5 fraternities and 4 sororities also referred to as The Divine Nine. Then the other organizations like NSBE was formed. Definitely, the end goal is one day we won't need counterspaces anymore, till then counterspaces are the only source of a blanket in the chilly environment for the Black studentst. Our data revealed that the only spaces students felt supported were the counter space where their racial identity was affirmed, they received different kinds of support and those spaces fostered multiple values- that was the idea of creating spaces or researching on counter spaces. Institutions can certainly build those spaces. For example, in many institutions, some of those spaces already exist, however, students did not mention counterspaces being recommended to them by faculty members or through institutional recruitment activities. This should be rectified and Black students should be made aware of all the spaces that are designed for Black students. Then Black students lack mentoring in their Ph.D. experiences, especially from a Black faculty- so hiring more Black faculty and creating a mentorship pathway for Black students could be a way of creating counter space. Faculty and other institutional gatekeepers should be knowledgeable about the spaces and opportunities that strengthen these students’ agency within engineering, and of great importance, during the time of transitioning into graduate school as particularly critical. One recommendation here based on the research is to encourage such individuals to dedicate a portion of their service commitments towards supporting events led by counterspaces, especially those that are student-led.

Great video! I found it quite interesting to see your interest in the correlation between student engagement to student success. Showcasing real data and numbers really helped me personally see the big picture and just how important this is. Before this video, I did not even know what an "extremophile" was, so thank you so much for the insight. Keep up the astounding work!

Dr. Goins,

Thank you so much for your comment. Please let me know if you have any other comments on methods-photo voice, interview, etc. 

Great work.  So critical to share student's personal experiences and how each of the counterpaces contribute to student success.  You reference elevating awareness of these counterpaces but moving beyond the need for them.  What strategies/practices might be introduced to move toward this goal?

Hi Claire,

Definitely, the end goal is one day we won't need the counterspaces anymore, until then, counterspaces are the only source of a blanket in the chilly environment for the Black students. Our data revealed that the only spaces students felt supported were the counterspaces where: their racial identity was affirmed; they received different kinds of support; and their values were centered. For example, in many institutions, some of those spaces already exist. However, students did not mention counterspaces being recommended to them by faculty members or through institutional recruitment activities. This should be rectified and Black students should be made aware of all the spaces that are designed for Black students. Then Black students lack mentoring in their Ph.D. experiences, especially from a Black faculty, so hiring more Black faculty and creating a mentorship pathway for Black students could be a way of creating counterspaces. Faculty and other institutional gatekeepers should be knowledgeable about the spaces and opportunities that strengthen these students’ agency within engineering, and of great importance, during the time of transitioning into graduate school as particularly critical. One recommendation here based on the research is to encourage such individuals to dedicate a portion of their service commitments towards supporting events led by counterspaces, especially those that are student-led.

Thank you everyone for your insightful comments. Our project PROSE is ongoing for almost three years now. we have explored all different areas, for example-transition from undergrad-phs, counterspaces, emotions, post COVID need of the Black doctoral students, mental health of the students in the intersection of two pandemics-racism 2.0 and COVID -19. Please let us know if you would like to know more about them. Also, this grant served the base for another grant-where we are exploring the need of Black doctoral students from advising and mentoring perspective and what faculty are practicing currently-the goal is to fill in the gap. 

https://stemforall2022.videohall.com/presentati...

This is the video from our preliminary data.

Thank you for this important work!

Liked the discussion of counter-spaces....Important to move past counter-spaces into spaces where no one group/individual is dominant... 

Wow, powerful metaphor! Thank you for sharing this perspective that so many of us need to hear!

As a planetary geologist, I'm really struck by the metaphor of extremophiles. I'm going to refer to this video when talking with colleagues about the need to improve systems and climate for students. Thank you!